Survival – Bob Marley & The Wailers (1979)

“Survival is a roots reggae album by Bob Marley & The Wailers released in 1979. Survival is an album with an outwardly militant theme. Some speculate that this was due in part to criticism Marley received for the laid-back, ganja-soaked atmosphere of his previous release, ‘Kaya’, which seemed to sidetrack the urgency of his message. In the song ‘Africa Unite’, Marley proclaims Pan-African solidarity. The song ‘Zimbabwe’ is a hymn dedicated to later-independent Rhodesia. The song was performed at Zimbabwe’s Independence Celebration in 1980, just after the official declaration of Zimbabwe’s independence. Survival was originally to be called Black Survival to underscore the urgency of African unity, but the name was shortened to prevent misinterpretations of the album’s theme. Marley originally planned to release Survival as the first part of a trilogy, followed by Uprising in 1980 and Confrontation in 1983. In South Africa the album was partly censored by the then white apartheid government.”Wikipedia

“Containing what is considered Marley’s most defiant and politically charged statement to date, Survival concerns itself with the expressed solidarity of not only Africa, but of humanity at large. The album was controversial right down to the jacket, which contains a crude schematic of the stowage compartment of a typical transatlantic slave ship. Survival is intended as a wake-up call for everyman to resist and fight oppression in all of its insidious forms. From Tyrone Downie’s opening synthesizer strains on ‘So Much Trouble in the World’ to the keyboard accents emerging throughout ‘Zimbabwe,’ the sounds of Survival are notably modern. The overwhelming influence of contemporary African music is also cited with the incorporation of brass, á la Fela Kuti and his horn-driven Africa ’70. …”allmusic